Solar Flares

[Miss Lawmaker]

I'm confused. I am at year 2.5 or so. Finally got through the first two winters, all have survived. I have plenty of food, and researched a lot. I when i finally get things going, solar flares? Have read a few posts on the subject, but i am still not sure.

What am I supposed to do? They disable all defenses, and right then comes a HUGE wave of animals, destroying everything? I have no fortifications, as i understand they spawn more animals? The attack is now much larger then anything before? There is no way I can survive this? I spent a lot of time building it all, included 3 turrets - and then the developers think, what would be more fun then to destroy everything, kill everything and disable all defenses? (My map have little fuel resources so flamethrowers are not an option now...) It feels like the game cheats - every time its about to get fun....LOL

[Breedon]

5 Years and never saw one Solar Flare but i was playing on easy so that could be why. Sounds super annoying though.

[Miss Lawmaker]

I was on year 3, sorry. But I am on easy. Very frustrating. Maybe some of my builds spawned it? Can't wait for a more creative mode. This game could be sooo much fun.

[Martin]

My last game I got 3 flares and 2 toxic ash in the first year.. and it only got worse, found no snipers etc, no fuel, almost no cloth either scrap or syth. Horrible game. Having to spend a day healing after every fight, juggling unhappy people.

But some maps are near perfect.. you find everything... even on hard difficulty.

[Boothy]

Flame turrets and traps are your friends, they still work in solar flares.

My early game (and I mean in year 1) defence is just a simple fence all around the base, a large opening at one end (needs to be wide enough for the larger animals to get through, otherwise they will ignore it and go through fences instead). With some traps and towers.

Then I add multiple flame turrets covering this entrance (I usually do 6 total, 3 one side, 3 the other, facing each other in a cross-fire), with lots of traps to slow them down, and enough towers close by inside for all survivors.

When the mob spawns in, draft everyone and send them to the base entrance. Keep them away from the mob, otherwise the bugs will try to path through the fence instead of going to the opening. This also includes survivors inside buildings, bugs can somehow detect survivors inside, even fast asleep in bed, and if the room is close to the fence as the bugs pass close by, they will beeline through the fence instead.

As I progress to gun turrets etc, I keep the flame turrets and traps as a backup for the solar flairs.

Only time I have issues is when the mob spawns in too close to the base, and sometimes some of the bugs will agro and attack the fence immediately. I have fence gates (the little ones), on each side of the base, and if this happens I draft the survivors and get them to pick of the attacking animals, whilst trying to avoid agroing the rest of them.

[Daiska]

I've got hundreds of hours into the game, and have never had solar flares. This leads me to believe using solar power triggers it. I never use solar, only wind. I also never put up any kind of turrets. So I don't think it's RNG, you might want to experiment with things, because it sounds pretty awful.

[Miss Lawmaker]

Thanks Boothy - good tips. I will try. Daiska, yes that would makes sense in this game. The solar panels spawning solar flares. I have a lot of solar panels :-) Thanks guys. Time to make a large opening in my fence :-)

[DarkHorse]

Originally posted by Daiska:

I've got hundreds of hours into the game, and have never had solar flares. This leads me to believe using solar power triggers it. I never use solar, only wind. I also never put up any kind of turrets. So I don't think it's RNG, you might want to experiment with things, because it sounds pretty awful.

I had never had a solar flair in one game for years.. as soon as I tried to make a game with an Air conditioned room.. solar flares came and took out my food... in my long game I have played for 10 game years and have only had like 2 solar flares and I"ve had solar power for a long time. You must have a crap ton of wind turbines ...

[Miss Lawmaker]

Not a sigle wind turbine, no. But A LOT of solar panels. I may be a coincidence. Some have them, some don't. I have had one.

[Martin]

Solar panels for charging batteries, wind turbines for offsetting power drain at night. With Carbon Wind Gens you can get rid of all your solars and never worry about power again. To an extent also with the lower end stuff as well.

Use of motion detectors, switches and day/night monitors, thermostat etc can further reduce the times everything is switched on.

[Miss Lawmaker]

Martin. Sounds very good, but I have never seen carbon wind generators? And I have research everything, except wine. Maybe luck to find them in a breakthrough? Soon done with my landing site and antennas. Hoping something good will come from that.

[captainmorgan12]

So I looked up how long do they last the solar flares? Do I have to deconstruct then remake them? Do the solar flares stop eventually?

[Flin Fredstone]

Solar flares stop eventually. Research flare shielding and you're fine. Items that use processors don't shut down, like turrets and AC's etc, but they will use twice the power during the event.
Research flare shielding, have wind turbines as well and bank enough power in multiple batteries.

[bmnoble981]

Originally posted by captainmorgan12:

So I looked up how long do they last the solar flares? Do I have to deconstruct then remake them? Do the solar flares stop eventually?

As Flin says all you need to do is research flare shielding and make sure your power grid has enough capacity either through generation or battery storage for all your devices that have CPU's don't think it applies to the robots though, drawing an extra 50% more power during solar flares for example:

With the technology researched your flac and missile turrets will go from drawing 30 power from the grid to drawing 45 power each instead, your machine gun turrets go from drawing 40 - 60, your laser turrets from 50 - 75 etc...